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‘Yes.’ Of all the things she’d asked of him, that one he could do.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TO SAY THAT security got tighter after that would be an understatement. When Cas wasn’t with her—and he was with her far more than he’d ever been—Tomas would magically appear, or Silas would show up, or Lor’s niece, who was now Sophia’s nanny, would drop by. Ana had yet to see a roster but dammit they had one and the purpose of that roster was to make sure that Ana was never alone. She’d stake her life on it.
The sooner she made her way to the dower house and eked out some small semblance of privacy the better.
It was a week after the incident with the fog, as she preferred to call it, and the dower house wasn’t ready yet and Sophia’s schooling still hadn’t been organised and Cas had flown to the capital to meet with Augustus.
Two weeks ago she’d been in Geneva, going about her business. These days she was thoroughly embroiled in Byzenmaach politics. If she wasn’t in the library reading up on the history of the region, she was at Rudolpho to feed her more reports. She’d taken extended leave from her work for the UN.
Her call, and no one else’s. There was too much to come up to speed on here.
The majority of Byzenmaach’s people had rallied behind Casimir and his plans, but the northerners had yet to reveal their intentions.
* * *
And then Sophia skidded into the room, her eyes wide and her cheeks red. ‘Tomas says you have to come to the tower,’ she said.
‘Why? Are you flying falcons today?’
‘Yes, and the riders are coming.’ Sophia’s excitement was evident. ‘A lady and a man and they’re armed and Tomas is all upset and you have to come now.’
‘Armed how?’
‘They have wolfhounds.’
‘Oh.’ This world… ‘Better get Silas too.’
‘He’s already there,’ said Sophia.
Many, many grey stone steps later, Ana stood on the battlements and gazed out across the plains towards the mountain pass. Two riders were approaching, two wolfhounds, two horses. And Tomas was in a right state.
He’d flown a falcon upon their approach, he told her. A falcon with a strip of royal purple cloth around one leg instead of the traditional leather jesses. He’d flown the cloth because it was a welcome, of sorts. A message—for those who could understand it—that they were now under the king’s personal protection.
‘Okay. So far so good,’ Ana said when the usually taciturn Tomas stopped for breath. She looked to Silas for direction but he offered no guidance. ‘So the falcon flew a piece of purple cloth as a welcome. What happened next?’
‘That woman got off her horse, pulled a gauntlet from her saddlebag and called my bird to her hand,’ Tomas said. ‘The bird now flies a white strip of cloth and two strips of purple. She’s saying that royalty is coming, in peace.’ Tomas paced, his eyes a little wild. ‘It was only whimsy that made me fly the cloth. Superstition. An old, old custom. And then she had the audacity to call my bird straight out of the sky. Using my signals.’
Tomas the falconer was the calmest man Ana knew.
Except for now.
‘So…she’s a falconer too?’
‘He thinks it’s Claudia,’ Silas said calmly, his eyes never leaving Tomas’s face.
‘I didn’t say that,’ said Tomas.
‘But you think it.’ The older man was giving the falconer no quarter.
‘Just to be clear, you’re talking Claudia as in Casimir’s dead sister?’ Ana looked from one man to the other. ‘You’re serious.’
‘We never got her body back,’ Tomas said stubbornly.
‘We got some of it back,’ said Silas.
‘Okay,’ Ana said hurriedly. ‘Six-year-old girl on the battlements. Listening.’
Tomas flushed red. Silas shut his eyes and shook his head.
‘Is there any way we can get a look at the woman’s face?’ she asked, and Tomas handed her a set of binoculars.
‘She’s wearing traditional headdress. Only part of her face is showing,’ he said. ‘It could be her. It could be anyone.’
‘But you think it’s her,’ said Ana.
